Quick and Easy Games for Kids: Paper Golf

Paper golf is a fun game for kids you can play anywhere! All you need is a pencil and sheet of paper. I came up with this simple game one afternoon to entertain the kids, and they loved it. I made you a printable to get you started, but once you have the process down you will be able to play this game anywhere, any time. This is a two-player game, but since it is all about spatial awareness, mirror image processing, and set-up strategy, you could play it on your own in a pinch. This game works best with pencils, but you can use crayons in a pinch.

Quick and Easy Games for Kids: Paper Golf Rules

Take out a sheet of paper and a pencil (or two pencils, but if you only have one you can share).

Fold the paper in half, as shown by the solid crease line in my printable. Unfold. This is your game board.

Assign sides.

Each play draws five small (or large – depends how challenging you want the game to be) circles on their side of the board. Think carefully about where you place your circles. The other player is going to try to get their balls into your circles (representing the holes on a golf course) by calculating the mirror image location on their half of the board.

Once the circles are drawn, Player 1 draws a small filled-in circle (representing a golf ball) on their half of the board, in the spot where they think the mirror image of one of Player 2’s holes would be.

Fold the paper in half, with Player 1’s half of the board on top. Player 1 now draws a small filled-in circle on the back of their half of the board – on the reverse of the first filled in golf ball circle they drew. This transfers the pencil graphite (or crayon wax) onto Player 2’s side of the board.

Unfold the paper. If the transfer of the filled-in circle is inside the hollow circle, Player 1 has successfully gotten their ball into the hole! Either way, it is now Player 2’s turn.

Player 2 now draws a small filled-in golf ball circle on their half of the paper, in the spot where they think the mirror image of one of Player 1’s holes would be.

Player 2 folds the paper in half, with their half of the board on top. and Player 2 now draws a small filled-in circle on the back side of their half of the board – on the reverse of the first filled-in golf ball circle they drew. This transfers the pencil graphite onto Player 2’s side of the board.

Unfold the paper. If the transfer of the filled-in circle is inside the hollow circle, Player 2 has successfully gotten their ball into the hole!

Continue playing until one play successfully fills all of the golf holes. Then get a new sheet of paper and begin again! as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, this simple game is a great way for kids to learn about spatial awareness as well as mirror images!